ry me; but I was poor, and
his father would have none of it, and I do not want to marry any one;
but if I did, it would be--' Her voice dropped, and her blushes told
the rest. Manasseh stood looking at her with sullen, hollow eyes, that
had a glittering touch of wilderness in them, and then he said:

'It is borne in upon me--verily I see it as in a vision--that thou must
be my spouse, and no other man's. Thou canst not escape what is
foredoomed. Months ago, when I set myself to read the old godly books
in which my soul used to delight until thy coming, I saw no letters of
printers' ink marked on the page, but I saw a gold and ruddy type of
some unknown language, the meaning whereof was whispered into my soul;
it was, "Marry Lois! marry Lois!" And when my father died, I knew it
was the beginning of the end. It is the Lord's will, Lois, and thou
canst not escape from it.' And again he would have taken her hand and
drawn her towards him. But this time she eluded him with ready
movement.

'I do not acknowledge it be the Lord's will, Manasseh,' said she. 'It
is not "borne in upon me," as you Puritans call it, that I am to be
your wife. I am none so set upon wedlock as to take you, even though
there be no other chance for me. For I do not care for you as I ought
to care for my husband. But I could have cared for you very much as a
cousin--as a kind cousin.'

She stopped speaking; she could not choose the right words with which
to speak to him of her gratitude and friendliness, which yet could
never be any feeling nearer and dearer, no more than two parallel lines
can ever meet.

But he was so convinced, by what he considered the spirit of prophecy,
that Lois was to be his wife, that he felt rather more indignant at
what he considered to be her resistance to the preordained decree, than
really anxious as to the result. Again he tried to convince her that
neither he nor she had any choice in the matter, by saying:

'The voice said unto me "Marry Lois," and I said, "I will, Lord."'

'But,' Lois replied, 'the voice, as you call it, has never spoken such
a word to me.'

'Lois,' he answered, solemnly, 'it will speak. And then wilt thou obey,
even as Samuel did?'

'No, indeed I cannot!' she answered, briskly. 'I may take a dream to be
truth, and hear my own fancies, if I think about them too long. But I
cannot marry any one from obedience.'

'Lois, Lois, thou art as yet unregenerate; but I have seen thee in a
vision as o